I don't understand why it's an issue to write in fits and bursts. It's what I do - I don't believe in this thing of forcing yourself to write every day whether you want to or not - and it hasn't been a problem for me. Maybe it would be a problem if I had publisher deadlines but I don't. I write when I feel like it and I don't write when I don't. Sometimes that's frustrating for me, because I have scenes in my head I want to get out, or because I desperately want to edit but I don't have a draft to edit... but mostly, it's okay. If I wrote every day I might be able to write four or five novels a year. But I'm okay with not writing four or five a year. Writing is a hobby and I do it for fun. I already have one full time job and I don't want another; especially one that pays so damn badly! So... what's the problem?
You get stuff done, though. Based on the OP, @OurJud isn't getting much done. (I'm not sure how this fits into the hundreds of short stories he's written, but maybe he means he's getting nothing done on the novel he really wants to write?)
This isn't even including the 2-3 incomplete drafts I have at 20-40k words and 2-3 completed drafts at 80-100k words, all of which I edit as I go along, some of which I have done edits and rewrites for. Anyway, eek sorry to hear you're in the same boat. Are you pushing through? How are you managing?
I had a dream once that I was diagnosed with cancer and only had a few days to live. My biggest regret was that I didn't have the time I thought I did to write books, and wished more than anything that I could go back before I had the cancer and write when I had the time. Then I woke up and realized I did have the time, and I felt nothing more than a powerful desire to write. That's the feeling I draw on when I want to feel inspired. The heartbreaking emotional devastation of that feeling of being out of time is something I'll never forget. Maybe you should think about how the world around you will have changed, and how you may have changed. If you are going to die tomorrow, don't you wish you had finished your book yesterday?
Well, as ridiculous as this might sound, the problem is that I don't write when I do feel like it. To understand that you'd probably have to be inside my head. When I was last here, 'bout 8 months ago, I was writing a road novel set in the not-too-distant future. I got to 20,000 words or so and dried up. I write my chapters (separate document for each) roughly in the order they're intended to be read, and the last chapter I wrote killed my inspiration because it was a throwaway chapter - a lazy filler because I didn't know how to move the story on. A horrible realisation hit me at this point, a realisation that I didn't know where it was going or why I was writing it. I tried to tell myself it didn't matter, and that the coherence of the story would come during editing and re-writes, but it was no good, I stopped wanting to write. So, I shut it away and stopped writing. This was also the trigger for my hiatus from this place. About a week ago I bought Cormac McCarthy's The Road from a local charity shop. Over the course of that day I would occasionally pick it up and flick through the pages, and something about the simplicity of the prose and the frequent line breaks in the text, ignited something inside me, and that little creative voice in me said, "Looks easy, doesn't it? You could do that. Why don't you start writing again." So, I logged back in here and started posting. That was 1 week ago tomorrow, and I still haven't opened a document. ----------------------------------------- I can't explain it any better than that. That's how it is. I know novels don't write themselves and that there's no magic answer, and despite my thread title being a direct question, I wasn't really expecting one. It's almost like I'm afraid, afraid that the urge I currently have to write will die if I actually start. To anyone else this just means I'm the type who only thinks he wants to write, but I know that's not the case. I also sense a tad of impatience being lost by a few people, but rest assured I'm reading each and every one of these posts, and will continue to do so even if my replies to this thread stop. Again, thanks to everyone that's contributed
Yep, you sound exactly like me. The trick - not that I've been cured because, if you notice, I've started a similar HELP ME AAARGH!!! thread in General Writing - anyway, the trick is to pants in part and plan in part. When you get to that dead end, it's okay to stop and actually spend some time thinking about the direction you'd like the book to go, how everything fits together, throw in any exciting new ideas etc. And as you write, it's okay if any of those "planned" bits change course too. You kinda let the plant grow where it will, while pruning it accordingly. Of course, this is easier said than done. So, what's stopping you from sitting and actually spending some time thinking about the story? I understand not knowing where the story's going zaps enthusiasm and inspiration - I'm the same - but what's so wrong with making sense of it when you hit a dead end, and changing things up accordingly? (of course, this helps if you know your defining theme and core story, and preferably some form of ending - just so you know what should stay and what can be changed even during the initial draft)
That's what I was getting at - the inconsistent urge to write isn't the REAL problem. That makes more sense, and is a much trickier problem. I'm... no help at all. But I'll listen to your posts and sympathise from afar
I would wish I'd finished my book. At the same time, I'm afraid of being a little too invested in it. Yes, you should do all you can to reach for your dreams, but if the purpose of your life is defined by your dreams - well, what if you never make it? That does happen. You might say you shouldn't think that way but it's reality, and when death comes knocking I do not want to be gripped by paralysing terror thanks to having fixated myself all my life on a single dream. Funnily enough, I had meningitis roughly a month ago and ended up in ICU for 2 nights and a further week of regular hospital stay, and the thing I remember is praying to God, "Let me watch my daughter grow up." She's one. Now the meningitis is over, I do feel that the experience should change me in some way. Thankfully nothing happened in the end and I'm fine now, but I do feel I want to use my time better. However, in my view time well-spent is not in writing - even though it is a good way of spending time - time truly well-spent is time spent in love and in service to God and neighbour. I've been disconnected from my church for a while now (disillusionment over some theology, disagreement over gay people, a little bored of the music, and lacking sleep thanks to having a baby which means I skipped church often this past year) - what I want is to make a return to church, and a return to God. I want to look back on my life and know that I have loved well. I want to have been a good wife, mother, daughter, and friend. I want the people around me to be left without a doubt that I love them, and that when I look back I can say I could not possibly have done more or loved them more. Still working on this. If writing features in that, awesome. If it doesn't... that'd be kinda a shame but at the end of the day, does it really matter that much? It matters a lot, of course, but not in the grand scheme of things, not when compared to the value of faith, people and relationships. Anyway so yeah, the death thing doesn't quite work for me hahahaha
Never mind, eh? Tenderiser's avo of Rik Mayall always cheers me up. He looks a bit like a cowboy in that pic, and I immediately think of him gozzing on his shoulder in A Fistful of Traveller's Cheques
Maybe we should set each other a daily goal, Mckk. Maybe we'd be more inclined to write if it was for someone else. Not sure how that would assist either of our respective on-going novel attempts, but just an idea.
Well right now I'm still pushing - and right now I'm binging on it hopefully trying to at least get to the "end" of the rough draft by about the end of the month (it's in the 80-90% done range). So for me I'm not quite in the "I can't write" boat (been there) so much as the "I can't write fast enough and I don't know how to pull all of this together for the end" boat. I recruited a few beta readers and gave them a Sep. 1 date for when I plan to have a finished and lightly revised draft - so I kind of purposefully gave myself that Sword of Damacles to motivate myself. That and I have to start night school for my Master's Degree on Aug. 29, so that's also kind of a hard deadline that I'm racing - and when I get to the end I'm going ot have to spend most of August cutting out 30,000 words to get back down under 100,000. Yay. Fun
@Commandante Lemming - I was gonna say deadlines are more symbolic but in your case, yeah that's pretty bad... @OurJud - it could work. I managed to finish my self-pubbed novel thanks to the fact that it was a collaboration, actually. My excitement was kept at its highest because I didn't know what my co-author would write next, even though of course I knew where it was going, and it was so much fun! It was like reading your own novel for the first time and getting to decide where things go However I'm not really into word count goals. What we could do is commit to writing one chapter per month and at the end of that month, send it to each other for critique? Sorta like having an alpha reader - I've never had one before. Or I dunno, wanna try a collab? I'd need to see what your writing is like to see if I enjoy it (and vice versa) because I don't think collabs work well if you don't enjoy each other's writing and have respect for each other's skills. You've gotta be on a similar technical level. However, this could be fun... What do you write? I write fantasy mostly, and love to include romance in it. My writing issue is usually that I don't know what to write - once someone tells me to write something, I can bang it out in a day usually. That collab novel I wrote was written in 5 weeks at 110k words
Ahh, and therein lies a possible compatibility problem. I've no interest in fantasy, and even less in romance I like future-set stuff and apocalyptic scenarios, but even then they have to have a gritty, dirty, authenticity to them. Imagine Ken Loach meets Stanley Kubrick.
What if you were just to hunker down and stay there till you've answered that question? It seems central to your whole story, yet you don't know what it is? I'm not surprised you're feeling a bit blocked here. It's almost like you're trying to work backwards. You've got characters, you've got scenes, you've probably got a setting, you have actions ...but you have no purpose and no underlying structure. Discover the purpose before you write another word! (Shakes finger like judgemental old English teacher....) What did your characters do to need redemption?
@OurJud - i also like dystopian stuff - there might be hope yet! Besides, writing outside of our preferred genres might actually inspire. So, what do you say? Wanna discuss some possible ideas and try and find one we both find exciting? @jannert - indeed it's central to my story. But i am finding it hard to imagine a mistake so grave it would lead to disaster. I realise the redemption aspect rests on why the character did what he did and the specific nuance of th situation, and i am also struggling to think of a good enough train of logic and human behaviours that would lead to disaster yet draw the readers in to sympathise rather than judge.
Well, the problem for me is that I do only write when I feel like writing, and I'm not progressing. At all. I suspect I'm not the only one that needs to write even when I don't feel like writing.
sometimes i find that going back and rewriting things that you haven't looked at in a while can be extremely effective in helping you mature as a writer. actually seeing how you have matured can lend itself to additional maturation, i suppose. also, finding new ways to build upon ideas you've already had can help kick start the desire to write!
I don't feel like writing often enough for the effort to pile up and accomplish anything. And I don't know if I believe that practicing a skill at irregular distant intervals will ever cause one to improve that skill.
1: The final goal is to write novels. If I were to set a very high goal, I would write novels that appeal in many of the ways that many of Rumer Godden's novels appeal to me. But I don't need to achieve that high a standard; I would be quite content to write pleasing pot-boilers. I think that pleasing pot-boilers are really a quite fine thing. 1.1: The interim goal is to find out whether I can ever be competent to write novels. If I conclude at some point that that either isn't going to happen, or there is not currently a path to making that happen, then I would switch to a higher-level goal of writing non-fiction that has greater value than my blog. Probably a book, but there are other avenues. 1.1.1: The interim interim goal is to write, oh, a hundred thousand words of fiction, with reasonable thought and care, and with a mild to moderate effort to improve as I go. Then there would be a next goal. But the hundred thousand words is a goal that I can understand, that seems quite achievable, and that I think has good odds of having value (Edited to clarify: The words themselves are unlikely to have value; I mean that the practice and experience would have value.) and providing me with information toward the next goal up. 1.1.1.1: The interim interim interim goal is to make it through one month of "story a day" with no more than two lapses per week. Because I've concluded that those hundred thousand words won't be written with "reasonable thought and care" if I just keep writing open-ended scenes. I need beginnings and endings. Conclusion: So that's what I should be putting serious determined glue-myself-to-the-laptop effort into.
Do you feel like you're more inclined to be a plotter or a pantser? From what I've seen of your writing at the sentence and paragraph level, I think you've already got more than enough skill to write the individual sentences of a strong and pleasing pot-boiler. So maybe the challenge will come with writing scenes, or satisfying plot arcs, or something else?
Thanks! I think that I may be a plotter who thinks she's a pantser. I want to be a pantser. I want to sit down and type and have fascinating complicated things pour from my head to my computer screen. And I think that one of the steps for me to is to release the delusion that that's going to happen for me. When I used to be a gamemaster for roleplaying games and wrote my own adventures, I was emphatically NOT a pantser. I planned. I plotted. I created facts and people and places and motivations. I took long long long walks in the park rearranging plot pieces in my head until they fit. So what makes me think that I can pants now? I used to tell myself that the difference is that as a gamemaster you have to be prepared for unexpected actions by the players, but that makes no sense--that's a pantsing situation! I did all that work so that the players would have at least the illusion of complete freedom of action but I still wouldn't have to pants. I doubt that I'll ever do that scene-by-scene, hundreds-of-items-in-the-outline situation, but I need to plan plots far more than I do.
If it's any comfort, I don't agree with this at all. As is obvious from my posts I go for long long periods without writing, but I have no doubt whatsoever that each time I do write, it's better and more assured than before.
